Enemies or Frienemies in the Religious Right?

I keep reading in the lay media about efforts by Christian lobbying groups to undermine the development of a vaccine against human papilloma virus -- the sexually transmitted infection that causes cervical cancer. If those stories are to be believed, there are massive campaigns afoot to prevent Merck and GlaxoSmithKline from ever recieving FDA approval of their late-stage HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix.

But that doomsday scenerio doesn't appear to be playing out.

I have never been a friend of the religious right, and those early murmurings of a plan to block an HPV vaccine made my blood boil. But most respectable Christian lobbying groups have either reluctantly agreed that the public health benefits of an HPV vaccine far outweigh the potential for increased sexual promiscuity, or they have decided to stay quiet on the issue. One prominant group, the Christian Coalition of America, actually supports HPV vaccine development.

While this may be wishful thinking, it seems that the (ill-founded) social-political arguments against HPV vaccination won't stand in the way of FDA approval.

Not that GSK hasn't tried: the company floated the idea to analysts of positioning its "cervical cancer vaccine" Cervarix against Merck's "STD vaccine" Gardasil. Not only did investors not bite, some were downright offended that GSK would take that tact.

For now, at least, it seems that GSK has put that argument on the back burner, freeing Merck up to address perhaps an even greater challenge: figuring out the details of what will need to be an enormous patient and physician educational effort.